Seduced by “power over”, when Christ taught us “service of”

Brian Beutler posted a thread with a link to an article in Off Message. The link’s title and subtitle:

How to Undo the Great Lie of 2024 Trump’s second election wasn’t a verdict for all time, but the coming midterms might be one.

I didn’t follow the link to the article. Beutler wrote in his thread:

MAGA got a huge return on gaslighting the elite into treating Trump's less than 2 percent popular vote plurality as a permanent repudiation of liberalism. The midterms represent an opportunity to propound an inverse but true narrative of American rejection of MAGA. But Dems have to frame it that way first. Republicans will send mixed messages if they lose, because Trump will deflect all responsibility for their poor performance. But they will be unified behind the idea that Democrats didn't win a mandate, because they always unify behind that idea. Meanwhile, in their affordability myopia, Democrats are likely to help Republicans along by attributing their own political success to Trump's narrow failure to reduce prices, giving him a pass on all the most repellent aspects of his presidency. If Democrats don't tell a grand story of Americans rising against fascism, the public will hear a different, false one. Republicans will say what the election was about, and what the results mean. And, once again, many people will believe them.

Drew Sheneman posted a cartoon on Daily Kos showing a crocodile labeled “Corporations” with a small bird in its mouth labeled “Dems.” The bird says,

Democratic Socialists will never understand our deeply symbiotic relationship. Now say ‘Ahh’ so I can pick the scraps from your teeth.

And that quite succinctly summarizes the problem I have with Democrats. Jon Paul Sydnor of the Street Prophets community group on Kos wrote a month ago:

If your church’s leaders are trying to control you, then leave. Many churches are systems of control that cause great pain. Today, some therapists are specializing in Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS), trying to heal the psychic scars produced by churches that castigate questioning members and hold the threat of hell over all. The leaders of these churches have abandoned their call, having been seduced by the lure of power over, when Christ taught us service of.

The purpose of the church is to share the love of God with the world. The church is where love is enacted as consistently as possible. Yes, it fails to love perfectly. Sometimes it harms instead of heals. But very few (perhaps no other) organizations discuss love at all. Love risks betrayal, but the alternative is self-seclusion, which denies life. The church may not (can’t) love a person completely back to health, but it can make a start. Unless the church is broken and won’t admit it. And many don’t. Sydnor told a few stories about his father, a pastor. At one church he wanted to stop a “girlie” show that was part of the county fair. The show wasn’t risque, it was degrading. But it brought in a lot of money and a leading elder in the church supported it. The pastor was told not to rock the boat. He became disillusioned and left the ministry. After a dozen years working to prevent juvenile delinquency he returned to the ministry. A family left a nearby church to try his church. The daughter had Down’s syndrome and the other church wouldn’t let her be in the Christmas pageant. This pastor named her to be Mary, the central role, in their pageant to the great joy of the congregation.

That was one of the best Christmas Eve services ever. It was an imperfect church with an imperfect congregation and imperfect pastor, but they worked hard to love like God. And sometimes they hit the mark perfectly, creating the little miracles that sustain us.

In the comments of today’s pundit roundup for Kos is a tweet from Team Talarico, the campaign to elect Democrat James Talarico to the US Senate from Texas. In it Talarico is shown saying:

Scripture tells us that you can’t love God and hate other people. You can’t love God and abuse the immigrant. You can’t love God and oppress the poor. Matthew 25 tells us Christians exactly how we’re going to be judged — by feeding the hungry, by healing the sick...

The rest is cut off from the text of the tweet, though includes clothing the naked, offering hospitality to the stranger, and visiting those in prison. I see Matthew 25 as a core of the message Jesus is trying to teach us. In response to Talarico’s message Aaron Baer tweeted:

This is genuinely one of the most evil interpretations of Scripture I've ever seen. Lord protect your Church and our nation from this wolf.

And to that Kos user Rambler797 added:

Wut? (these people don’t know their own book)

Commenter The Idiot went looking for who Aaron Baer is: the president of the “Center for Christian Virtue.” It has turned the Bible upside down. That organization has completely inverted the Christian message and has accumulated the power and platform to override the love of God, then use the threat of God to spread hate. Vile. I went to Baer’s tweet, and of course it is on X. I was able to see a couple of the comments, all X would allow me to see before demanding I sign in. From Braden Bellack:

When someone posts something like this and then doesn’t respond to any of the comments or try to defend what they’ve said, it’s called rage bait. That’s all this is.

Think Prague posted a cartoon showing St. Peter at the gate of Heaven facing a man in a MAGA hat.

St. Peter: So, tell me... did you welcome the foreigner? Help the poor? Feed the hungry? Care for the sick?... you know, all the things Jesus commanded? Man: Listen here LibTard.